The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 2 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
It follows that the soul which found its initial consummation in the
simple feeling of Divine blessedness must step forth from this heavenly
kingdom peculiar to the _religious_ sphere, must undertake the effort
of self-introspection and assimilate a content which is, as vitally
present, adequate to the demands of the individual consciousness in
its fullest extension. And in this process that which was before a
_religious_ coalescence of soul is changed to one of _secular_ type.
Christ indeed said; "Ye must leave father and mother, and follow Me."
And in the like spirit: "Brother shall hate brother; men shall crucify
you and persecute you." But as soon as the kingdom of God has secured
a foothold in the world, and is actively employed in transfusing with
its spirit and illumining the aims and interests of that world; when
father, mother, and brother are already numbered in the community,
then the things of the world on their side commence to assert their
just claim to recognition and furtherance. If this claim is not merely
fought for but vindicated then also the negative attitude of the
religious spirit, which was at first exclusively hostile to all that
was merely human, vanishes; the spirit of man enlarges, it explores
the full scope of its actual presence, and unfolds its heart in the
entire world of reality[242]. The fundamental principle suffers no
alteration; the substantive and infinite self-consciousness merely
directs its attention to another province of its own kingdom. We may
perhaps define this transition in the statement that the individual
singularity is now as such singularity independent of its mediation
with God and self-subsistently free. For precisely in that mediation,
whereby it divested itself of its purely finite limitation and natural
life, it has passed over the path of mere negation, and reappears
after having thus secured an essentially _affirmative_ position,
in the condition of a consciousness that is free and as such makes
the demand that it shall, in virtue of its own infinitude, though
the infinitude is here only in the first instance one of pure form,
secure complete recognition both for itself and others. In this the
religious mode of the individual consciousness is reposed the entire
spiritual wealth of the infinite soul, which it has hitherto filled
up with God. If we, however, made the inquiry, of what material the
heart of man is suffused in this its inward repletion, such a content
merely concerns the infinite relation of the subjective consciousness
in its active self-relation; it is simply replete with its own
formal medium, that is, as essentially infinite singularity without
further and more concrete expansion and significance as a content of
interests, aims, and actions which is itself essentially objective
and substantive[243]. If we further examine the matter, however, more
closely we shall see there are in the main _three_ emotions, which